Parents Accelerate Measles Shots as Cases Double Across the US

Elias Kass, a naturopathic physician in Seattle, began recommending a combined measles, mumps, rubella and chickenpox shot at 15 months of age a few years ago as case counts climbed. Parents are now asking for it more often. "There's no reason to wait, measles is here now," Kass said.

Confirmed measles cases in the United States have doubled compared with last year. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention typically advises the first MMR shot after a child turns one and the second between ages four and six, but the agency says an earlier second dose is an option.

Germany, the United Kingdom and France already advise giving the second shot within four weeks of the first. Germany changed its schedule in 2001 after an outbreak caused illness and deaths, setting the first dose at 11 to 14 months and the second at 18 to 23 months. In 2020, Germany moved the second dose to four weeks after the first.

Margot Taylor, a mother in Chicago with three children, has used a different MMR schedule for each of them. Her oldest, born in 2019, got the shots at ages one and four, when measles was not on her radar. Her second child, born in 2023, received the second shot at age two after Chicago faced an outbreak.

Taylor's third child, born in 2025, got the first shot after her first birthday and the second three months later in June. Before that first dose, the baby was exposed to measles at an airport during the west Texas outbreak. A month old at the time, the baby developed a fever and Taylor brought her to the hospital, where they waited in a negative-pressure room until the test came back negative for measles.

"I never thought that I would have to be learning the vaccine schedules," Taylor said.

The CDC advises the first dose at six months in areas with outbreaks, before international travel and after exposure to measles. Infants who get an early first dose also receive a third dose, because antibodies passed from a vaccinated mother in utero may blunt the response at that age. The second dose, Kass said, is "a second chance to respond for the first time."

Catherina Becker, a scientist in Germany, said no data so far shows children vaccinated twice on an accelerated schedule face higher risk than those who follow the old rule. She pointed to a 1998 Alaska outbreak where 17 people were sickened at a school of about 2,186 students, nearly all of whom had measles shots, against a 2010 German Waldorf school outbreak where 71 of roughly 300 students were sickened and nearly half were unvaccinated.

"It shows you what the measles vaccine does for you," Becker said.

Becker's own son got his second measles shot at two and a half, delayed only because he was recovering from chickenpox. She said the CDC should consider recommending the second shot earlier.